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Corrupt Harddrive

stevepierce69

Posted 14 September 2013 - 06:29 AM

stevepierce69

New Member

Member

1 posts

A few days ago my laptop stopped working. I took my laptop to a local computer fixer who immediatly diagnosed a fried hardrive. He whipped it out the laptop plugged it in and claimed it was very bad!! However he recovered all my critical files.
He replaced the Hardrive, but I thought Id get a External Adapter and see if I could recover some files by myself. I have plugged it in and find that most of it I can access as normal. However my User file wont read,,, windows explorer just scans and the green bar stops toward the end. Id really like to access these,,, I tried using Recuva and it seems to be able to read the user file and folders but of course is only recovering deleted files.
Is there something that will allow me to bypass the User file (stevepierce) and get into uncorrupted files beyond???
I am running windows 7 and the hardrive is divided into two halves,,, its only the one USER file that I cant access everything else is fine... I have a bunch of movie files that I can access easily for example.

Very grateful for any help. I am suspicious that the harddrive isnt fried and that I have been duped!!!!

Once Puppy Linux has loaded, it is actually running in your computer's Memory (RAM). You will see a fully functioning Graphical User Interface similar to what you normally call "your computer". Internet access may or may not be available depending on your machine, so it is recommended you print these instructions before beginning. Also, double clicking is not needed in Puppy. To expand, or open folders/icons, just click once. Puppy is very light on resources, so you will quickly notice it is much speedier than you are used to. This is normal. Ready? Let's get started.

3a. Mount Drives

Click the Mount Icon located at the top left of your desktop.

A Window will open. By default, the "drive" tab will be forward/highlighted. Click on Mount for your hard drive.

Assuming you only have one hard drive and/or partition, there may be only one selection to mount.

USB Flash Drives usually automatically mount upon boot, but click the "usbdrv" tab and make sure it is mounted.

If using an external hard drive for the data recovery, do this under the "drive" tab. Mount it now.

3b. Transfer Files.

At the bottom left of your desktop a list of all hard drives/partitions, USB Drives, and Optical Drives are listed with a familiar looking hard drive icon.

Open your old hard drive i.e. sda1

Next, open your USB Flash Drive or External Drive. i.e. sdc or sdb1

If you open the wrong drive, simply X out at the top right corner of the window that opens. (Just like in Windows)

From your old hard drive, drag and drop whatever files/folders you wish to transfer to your USB Drive's Window.

For The Novice: The common path to your pictures, music, video, and documents folders is: Documents and Settings >> All Users (or each idividual name of each user. CHECK All Names!) >> Documents >> You will now see My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos.

Remember to only click once! No double clicking! Once you drag and drop your first folder, you will notice a small menu will appear giving you the option to move or copy. Choose COPY each time you drag and drop.

YOU ARE DONE!!! Simply click Menu >> Mouse Over Shutdown >> Reboot/Turn Off Computer. Be sure to plug your USB Drive into another working windows machine to verify all data is there and transferred without corruption. Congratulations!

If you are able to recover your films successfully I would run the HDD diagnostic tool that is appropriate for your brand of HDD, I will provide the details for this after you let us know how you got on with Puppy.